BACK IN THE RED

Steve Lyons and Chris Howarth were granted exclusive behind-the-scenes access to the filming of Red Dwarf VIII.

Thursday 3 December 1998. Shepperton Studios is living up to all the movie lot stereotypes: men in chaps ride around on horseback, whilst Roman Centurions and Ancient Egyptians march between the canteen and the set of the new Cleopatra remake. And, on Stage B, the distant past gives way to the far-flung future, as the cast and crew of Red Dwarf begin the penultimate day of shooting on what may well be the series’ final episode.

The stage is dominated by Red Dwarf itself. Production designer Mel Bibby’s sprawling set encompasses a prison cell and visiting area, the Captain’s office and bedroom and an all-purpose corridor. At the far end of the stage stands the cockpit of Blue Midget, the series’ original shuttlecraft, now back in favour thanks to computer generated effects. Opposite this, the blackened and melted Starbug set is a testament to the fall from grace of the Midget’s successor.
  We arrive at eleven o’clock, to find all seven regular cast members in the Artificial Reality suite, at the back of the main set. They are recording a scene which, because of its use of video effects, cannot be performed before an audience.
  About a dozen crew members are present too, including Ed Smith of Special Effects GB Ltd., who has been running the ‘floor effects’. “We had a big number this morning,” he reveals. “We did a big scene in the corridor, which involved a Coke dispenser shooting a can out of the machine. There were lots of sparks, fireballs, flashes, all that kind of thing.” We’re sorry to have missed it.

The actors finish their scene and leave. But the day has only just begun. Before long, they return, sans costumes, for a final read-through of the episode that will be recorded tomorrow night. Although the last episode to be shot, it is the conclusion to Red Dwarf VIII’s opening three-parter, ‘Back in the Red’. In front of Captain Hollister’s sleeping quarters, a table has been laid out with scripts, along with sundry items of merchandise to be autographed for worthy causes. Also present are writer/executive producer Doug Naylor, producer/director Ed Bye, and guest star Jeillo Edwards, who is to portray an Air Traffic Controller.
  Next, the cast run through their lines on the set itself. As Craig Charles and Chris Barrie take their places in the cell, Chloe Annett takes advantage of her absence from the first two scenes – and of Hollister’s bed – to take a nap. She can’t rest for long, though – there are lines to be learned. “Today is a bit rushed,” she tells us later, “because it’s coming to the end, and actually I’m a bit tired.” She isn’t the only one. Red Dwarf VIII has been over three months in the making. It has been a gruelling schedule, and it’s beginning to tell.
  In the cell, a discussion has begun. Barrie suggests changing a line about an encounter between Rimmer and a nun. Naylor considers ideas from Bye and Charles, but ultimately decides to go with what was originally written.
  During a lull in proceedings, Charles comments on the veracity of a scripted comment about prison social workers. Having spent several months inside in 1995, when he was falsely accused of rape, he is quite cheerful about the irony of his character’s predicament.

We take the opportunity for a few words with some of the cast. The Blue Midget set provides a suitably out-of-the-way location. Each actor in turn gravitates towards his or her character’s seat in the cockpit, with the exception of Norman Lovett. “I’ve never sat in here before,” he says, as he looks around and settles at Kryten’s station. He experiments with the controls, including the inset keyboard that has been cannibalised from an old computer. He retrieves the discarded notice that warns all actors to mime using their keyboards – apparently, they’re too noisy.
  Lovett shows us the black stripe that has been applied to his neck. “It always needled me that you could see bits of my neck in the first and second series. Now, they paint my neck, so there’s none of that. It’s a new thing, a new move forward with my character.” He is interrupted by a call on his mobile phone. As if he wasn’t busy enough, he is trying to co-ordinate a move of house, from Edinburgh to London.
  We ask Chloe Annett if she still feels like the new girl. “No,” she says – then, laughing, she adds, “I just think it shows! I guess I’m settled in now, but it’s still as hectic as ever. That’s why I’m trying to learn my lines now.”
  Robert Llewellyn enthuses about the return of old friends. “It’s like having a family back together, we’ve all had a really good time. It’s great to have Chris back and he’s been brilliant to work with, I did miss him.” He has another reason for being pleased with the change in the series’ format. “The location we went to for the prison set was extraordinary, it was such an enormous hole in the ground. It was a very good prison – and it was cold and damp, which suits me. The colder the better – so this studio’s been great, because it’s bloody freezing!”

A videotape is brought into the studio, containing the first episode dubbed into Japanese (Japan has just bought the show’s entire run). Everyone gathers around a monitor, prepared for a good laugh. But the few chuckles subside as it becomes apparent that the voice-over artists have done an exceptionally good job. The actor dubbing Lister sounds uncannily like Craig Charles, and one wag comments that the Cat even looks Japanese.

After lunch, the cast – minus Mac McDonald – take their places in Blue Midget to rehearse the crew’s abortive escape attempt. Sitting in his usual seat outside the cockpit, Lovett suggests an addition to Holly’s speech about the theory of relativity. “It’ll get a huge laugh,” he insists – and, this time, Naylor is persuaded. Meanwhile, Charles breaks off his joystick. Danny John-Jules is impressed: apparently, that usually happens during the first episode.

As Friday dawns, everybody’s exhaustion is miraculously dispelled, to be replaced with enthusiasm for the upcoming recording. The cast run through their scenes again, without scripts this time – and there is much discussion of Holly’s ‘moon’ impression, as the technical crew work on shining just the right combination of lights onto Lovett’s head. There is also a short pause, as McDonald records a voice-over for the beginning of the episode.

In a separate building nearby, videotape editor Mark Wybourn is already working on tonight’s episode. Location scenes, and some that rely on effects, have been pre-recorded; they will be shown to the studio audience to fill in the gaps, as well as for the all-important laughter track. “The show’s confusing enough as it is,” says Wybourn, “without us not being able to tell them what’s going on.” At present, he is putting together the Cat’s dance sequence with Blue Midget, using captions to cover those shots for which the CGI effects aren’t yet complete.
  Like everybody else, Wybourn is pushed for time, particularly as, with filming approaching, it is difficult to pin down the very busy Doug Naylor. “What invariably happens is that I get twenty-five minutes with him at lunchtime, and the next time I see him is probably at half past six. Most weeks, I end up doing half the roll for the night, and then I carry on editing while the show is carrying on [in front of the audience], because that gives me an extra hour.”
  Wybourn works for the BBC, but is stationed here at Shepperton while the series is being shot. “They shoot stuff in the morning, and I come in here, smack it together and see if it works. You need to do that, because it’s such a massive thing, and it’s very easy to miss something because there is so much going on. That’s the whole reason for me being here – you’ve got the cast here, you’ve got the extras here, so, if something doesn’t work, they can just re-shoot it.”
  A case in point is the scene that was recorded in the AR suite yesterday. Apparently, this was a re-shoot, done for the sake of a few extra camera angles. As Wybourn turns his attention to this footage, Naylor enters, and asks if another video effect can be added, to clarify what is happening.

Appropriately enough, we find Danny John-Jules in the wardrobe department, taking the opportunity to do a spot of laundry. “We’re still seeing [the script] now,” he confides, cheerfully, “and we’re going into the dress run. But that’s showbiz – it’s not how you get into trouble that counts, it’s how you get out!”
  The department’s racks are, for the most part, filled with beige shirts and trousers. Costume designer Howard Burden was originally brought onto the series to revamp its look for Red Dwarf III – eight years on, he has been asked to recreate costumes from Seasons One and Two. “We’ve used a bit of artistic license,” he admits, “but we’ve kept the basics: the colouring and that very utilitarian uniform. I think it’s right to do a slight twist, because the series has changed now. We could have been trying to be too clever. We did toy with the idea of making the uniforms blue [as per those that featured in flashback scenes in Red Dwarf VII], but we thought the hardcore of fans who remember Series One wouldn’t buy it.
  “It’s strange, because it’s the first time we’ve had everyone wearing the same, including the Cat. Danny has been trying to retain the Cat’s characteristics without the glitzy jackets and the dressing up. He gets just one spangly outfit, when he does a dance routine with Blue Midget.”
  “But he tries to do things with it,” John-Jules claims. “If you notice, even his prison outfit’s different, because he’s got padded shoulders in his, and sometimes he’s got his Cat belt on as well and sometimes he’s got his boots. You have to keep your eyes peeled.”
  All the regulars have their own racks – even Holly, although his contains a single black jumper. Lister’s rack is signposted by his famous leather deerstalker.
  “A lot of my contribution to Red Dwarf has been putting comedy in the costumes,” says Burden, “and there’s been less opportunity for that this time.” Nevertheless, he points out a nurse’s outfit on the Cat’s rack. “You know you’ll get a chortle from Danny dressed as a nurse.” Maybe, but how did the Cat feel about that? “He would probably have seen it as a challenge,” says John-Jules. In his character’s voice, he adds: “I can carry that off!”

The cast file in, to change into costume for the dress rehearsal. As it begins, Mac McDonald waits behind the scenes, in regulation JMC uniform, for Hollister’s first scene. “It’s great, it’s really fun,” he says of his return to Red Dwarf after ten years. “When you go into something where everybody already exists as a unit, like these people did, it can be really quite difficult – but it isn’t difficult at all with this bunch, they just welcome you in.” Was it a surprise when the part came up again? “No, not really – I always figured that I’d come back, I just thought it would be as a coffee table or something weird.” At this point, McDonald doesn’t know if his character will be sticking around. “I don’t have the audacity to ask! But that’s the cool thing about Red Dwarf: you can be killed in one episode and then come back in the next one. So it doesn’t matter if you see somebody going off into the sunset, they can be riding on behind you.”

Naylor and Bye have a few script notes to go through with the cast, but a conference in the audience seating area soon turns into a discussion about Red Dwarf’s big screen future. There is a sense of optimism and excitement about the move, although McDonald unwittingly introduces a note of caution when he recalls the example of Car 54, Where Are You?
  Then it’s off to make-up, presenting an opportunity to witness Robert Llewellyn’s transformation into Kryten. “This is the best mask from my point of view,” he says. “I think it looks good, and the technology’s improved – it goes on much quicker. It takes about an hour – in the first series I did,  it was four and a half, five hours.”
  John-Jules enters, tailed by the line producer’s dog – another example of life imitating art? Meanwhile, Charles realises that Robot Wars, his other BBC 2 series, is about to start, and he phones home to make sure it gets taped. “I should probably sign off,” he jokes.
  Spirits are high. “It’s been really, really good,” says Charles, enthusiastically. “It’s the best season so far, in terms of us all getting on well.” Casting a sly glance across the room, he adds: “Apart from Robert Llewellyn, who’s a twat.” Llewellyn hears him, as he was meant to, and laughs.
  Chris Barrie takes a seat, and make-up designer Andrea Finch begins her work. One part of the process that Barrie doesn’t miss is the addition of an H to his forehead. “It used to fall off, round about my last laugh of the night,” he claims. “It didn’t!” protests Finch, in mock horror. “Round about ten o’clock,” Barrie persists, ”I’d be trying for a big punchline and suddenly…” Finch protests again, and Barrie admits, “No it didn’t, I’m saying that for effect.”
  We ask what has prompted Barrie’s return to the series, but it’s Charles who pops up and answers: “I had to have sex with him ten times before he’d return!” “And obviously,” says Barrie, “it worked!” However, although Barrie is playing Rimmer ‘as he was then’, he hasn’t gone entirely back to basics. “I’m a little bit older – and I think it’s not only me, but the writing as well – we’ve all used those years to develop a bit, and that makes for a different approach. It’s all slightly more confident, more relaxed – I was in my twenties then, I’m in thirties now, so I do play him slightly differently, but it’s all just to do with maturity, I hope. I think the character’s the same – he’s still a major loser, to say the least.”

Downstairs, what may be Red Dwarf’s last ever studio audience takes its seats. This is another return to the series’ roots – the last season was recorded behind closed doors – and it’s one that the cast are pleased about. “The nights we’ve had the audiences in have been fantastic,” says Llewellyn. “It’s been great to get back to that side of it, that’s what I really enjoy doing. Scenes which last a minute and a half in rehearsal have lasted three in front of the audience, because the laughs are so enormous.” Despite this, Naylor still worries about the reception that each new script will receive. He even considers sending out for a copy of the Carpenters’ hit Close To You, to play before recording begins. He wants it to be fresh in the minds of the audience when the Cat later makes a joke based on its lyrics.
  “We’re all performers, we’re not really actors,” says Charles, “so it gives us a chance to perform a bit more to the camera.” Presumably, though, it means that everything has to be a little tighter? “You haven’t worked with Robert Llewellyn!” says Charles, glancing at his friend to see if he has provoked another reaction. “Yeah, it’s supposed to be tighter, but, you know, we were given our parts for a reason – and that’s because we’re all very much incompetent, like the characters we play. So, it never goes as smoothly as one hopes it will. Even now, we’re all sitting here, knowing that some bits are going to be pants.”

Red Dwarf VIII has been shrouded in secrecy, which is no mean feat for a show filmed in front of an audience. On the studio monitors, a message from Lister’s old foe the Inquisitor warns audience members not to reveal what they have seen, particularly over the Internet. Grant Naylor’s General Manager, Helen Norman, says it has worked extremely well. So, either Red Dwarf fans are a fair-minded bunch, or they’re really scared of the Inquisitor.
  Ed Bye says a few words before retiring, with Naylor, to a van outside the studio, in which they will watch each scene as it is recorded and then play it back. This process makes for a good number of delays, but a warm-up man has been employed to keep the audience happy – and to remind them that, on the few occasions when a re-take is necessary, they should laugh as if they haven’t heard the joke before.
  Another problem for the audience is that the set has grown considerably since Red Dwarf VI, and only the cell and the Captain’s office are fully visible to them. Those seated to the far left of the studio see even less, although they are treated to a piece of behind the scenes magic, when a stage hand physically opens and closes the ‘automatic’ cell door. However, no one seems to mind following much of the action on monitors – particularly not as the cast make an effort to show themselves between scenes. At one point, Lovett wanders into view and tries out part of his routine from his forthcoming stand-up tour.

Within a couple of hours, it’s over – for now, at least. Grant Naylor Productions haven’t ruled out a Red Dwarf IX, but they are certainly gearing up to continue the saga in movie form. And, of course, any films will feature the original cast. As Charles says: “We’re all over the world now – we’re into America, Holland, Australia, Canada, Japan, Scandinavia, all of Europe except Germany… so it would be silly to change anything, wouldn’t it?”